


tarnish

by skydork (klismaphilia)



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Blood and Gore, Body Horror, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Isolation, Kidnapping, M/M, Mouth trauma, Past Child Abuse, Past Sexual Abuse, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Psychological Trauma, Torture, Verbal Humiliation, Waterboarding, hand trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-10
Updated: 2017-11-26
Packaged: 2018-12-25 21:51:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,899
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12044997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/klismaphilia/pseuds/skydork
Summary: Hux is familiar with torture. If this brutality was meant to break him, it wasn't succeeding.But if it's meant to tarnish him instead, to remind him of his worthlessness, his inadequacy, hisfragility?Well, that's a different story.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DarthAstris](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarthAstris/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Prompt: Tortured Hux](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/341688) by DarthAstris. 



> For the following KMB art/fic prompt: General Hux is being held down on his knees by unseen captors; his tunic ripped open, hair askew, bruised and bloodied, looking straight at the viewer. Has he been captured by the Resistance? A rival Imperial faction? Aliens? Pirates? Will he be saved in time? Up to you. Basically I’m looking to make a quick, dirty, torture/gore set. Very bloody. Very NSFW.
> 
> I can't even tell you how sorry I am for how late I'm posting this, Astris. I'm sorry. You deserve so much better. Nonetheless, I have to say that Astris is an immensely talented person and a wonderful artist and writer. Her prompt was EXACTLY my kind of fucked up and I hope this fic reflects that fairly well (especially when it's posted in its entirety.) I hope this fandom's still doing well. Kinda disappeared from the face of the planet honestly, but I'm (somewhat) back now.
> 
> Check out [Astris](https://darthastris.tumblr.com/) on tumblr and/or check out [myself](symphorophilian.tumblr.com) on tumblr if you have a chance.

It begins the same as every other day.

With the deep rumbling of a decrepit ship and Hux’s waking to the inside of a metal box.

He wakes, exhausted, to the bolts and shuddered lid of what might as well be his coffin, blinking away delirium from his vision as he gasps in a deep breath of air. A hand, rough and smeared with grime, wraps around the lower half of his face, ripping a well-worn cloth out from his mouth. Hux’s eyes sting from exhaustion, the overwhelming fatigue never quite wearing out these days, especially when he’s so exposed, incapable of hiding himself. The hissing from in between the walls saw to it that the former General would be allowed no sleep, and even as he feels the urge to cry welling deep inside his chest, his body refuses to act on the instinct. His tear ducts have long since dried up, presuming they’d been intact to begin with after the abuses of his childhood. His eyes are bloodshot down to the white of his sclera, the look of unhinged desperation overtaking whatever power they might have held before his capture; Hux’s mouth dribbles blood down over his chin, lips split open and torn apart by teeth that may not have even been his own.

Everything about this position feels demeaning-- his shackled arms, his haggard face, his gagged mouth-- and yet it is not nearly as unexpected as it might have been, were he another officer, and not the infamous Armitage Hux. Because Armitage is jaded, has been since he can remember, indifferent to the criticisms and humiliation and torture which others have inflicted on him since the day of his birth. Brendol, of course, had been more than happy to allow the other cadets to beat him bloody when he’d pfaasked something up, hadn’t cared if they raped him as long as it didn’t show. Behind closed doors, Brendol smacked him about as well, more easily than even the other cadets-- he’d stuffed him in a box often, a coffin just like this one, in an attempt to drown away the pitiful whimpers of his mistake, ignoring his useless bastard whenever he had the chance.

“--and you like it, you disease-riddled whore. Pfaasking useless whelp, so revolting even your _slave_ mummy didn’t want you. She probably knew how much you like it when somebody tears open that slutty red hole of yours, eh?”

And reality snaps back into focus.

His captor has him pinned on his front over a metal slab, Armitage’s bruised hips smacking against the surface with each violent thrust made into his body. His arms are wrenched painfully behind his back, bent inward at the elbows in a manner that even his captor knew arms should not be bent; a brittle shard of bone peeks out from the skin above his elbow, his skin mangled about the injury like a popped balloon. The weakness is overwhelming. He _loathes_ the disgust he feels from within his own skin, abhors the way his legs are angled as wide as possible and his cock is squeezed between gnarled fingers as his own blood seeps down the inside of his thighs and drips in rivulets to the puddle on the floor beneath him. The stench of urine is almost as vibrant as the scarlet liquid spread beneath his feet.

Hux’s chest is slammed forward, the chafing of his skin having grown grotesque, long gashes and mottled rashes layering every inch of the formerly snow-white flesh; Kylo would be shocked to see how bad he’s gotten again. Even Hux himself feels angered at the failures of his brittle body, regardless of how it hindered him before.

Something spills inside him, white-hot and searing the abused flesh of his hole, torn and brusied as it is. His captor smacks one of his asscheeks, the skin-on-skin contact drawing a flush to the surface as Hux pitifully squirms and smacks his head against the wall on instinct. “St--stop, stop, please… please, I’ll do w...hat you w-want…”

But his captor says nothing, only pulls the rope tight between Armitage’s lips again and tosses him onto the floor, leaving his face smothered by his own filth, the acrid stench of his leaked piss coating his cheek, his spilled blood left to lay upon his lips.

“We’re _well_ beyond cooperation, General.”

The door slams. Twenty-seven days of the same door slamming, and Armitage still cannot process the sound of it. Everything within the confines of this grey-walled containment room seems futile, pointless… entirely abject. His already frail body is little more than a broken husk, less than even his mind… which, he’s certain, is dwindling.

 _Failure,_ he berates himself, _disgusting, repulsive, worthless whore. Narcissistic, treacherous filth, slime, undesirable, a heathen, a wretch, a desperate and prurient sycophant--you should be ashamed of yourself, Hux. All your failures, the depraved, loathsome acts you’ve committed, the hatred that runs in your blood. The blood on your hands, the lust in your heart… all of it reeks of shame--you should be ashamed, ashamed!_

But he can’t pull himself away… can’t disappear into his head, has no authority to assert, not this time. All Hux has are shackles to steady him… his restraints and his agony, bleeding into the abject memory of his wretched youth.

Hux thinks, in the few moments before unconsciousness, of his tormentors in the Academy; he thinks of public whippings and belittling jeers within strength classes, of broken noses and anal fissures which he’d sat through bleeding, fielding the taunts thrown at him with callous eyes and an indifferent posturing.

He wonders, briefly, if this place is worse than he’s imagining it to be-- after all, he’s survived Hell once before. And this… this is merely an echo of his past.

 

 

* * *

 

As a youth, there was nothing in the world that Armitage Hux had ever desired more than to be _perfect._

Dead, and perfect. And the most perfect part of death was the nature of it, knowing that anything done could not be undone as his body dropped into a perpetual state of decay, underneath the grip of rotting skin and fraying ligaments, bones chipped beneath the lid of a tight coffin that always seemed to accentuate the innumerous inadequacies of his own body.

For, after all, being undone meant that he was real-- an honest being, rather than a facet within a withering system in dire need of reform. Too long had Armitage been crushed under the press of his father’s thumb as much as the Order’s heel; for years upon years, he’d thought himself little more than a failed experiment, one made to be shorn apart time and time again until he understood cruelty.

Cruelty was a mere shade of the tumultuous wave of the reality he had faced, however-- in thirty-five miserable years, he had grown from bastard, to cadet, to officer, to General, and the parts in between were filled with a greater sense of inane cacophony than even his current positions. Torments endured at the hands of his fellow soldiers, punishments doled out as often as rations, meant to put him in a place meant for lesser men all because of his father’s disdain for his weak son.

Armitage had been vitreous, once; weak-willed and brittle-boned, _useless_ to the very extent of the word. But he had something which nobody else seemed to possess-- a deep-rooted apathy, a _loathing_ for life itself.

He remembered too well, as a child, the abuse which his own father had sought to subject him to, the debasement he’d endured from mocking cadets, always leering, always poking fun. Their insults had helped him grow more than the scars ever did, ones he’d earned from being tangled in a straightjacket and locked in a wooden crate for hours, sightless, soundless and immobile. He remembered Brendol’s favorite taunting him-- _the pathetic little puppet for his commanders’ whims--_

 _Never again,_ Hux had told himself.

His ascent to General was less difficult than his training, though it took a toll just as everything else had; sleepless nights and crushing insomnia, an addiction to caf and a growing reliance on stims that he could pump into his veins like a silicone implant. The ebb of the cresting high made him feel masculine, feel powerful, like a leader should; and Armitage was a leader, after all.

In his power, he hardly had to give way to thoughts of death, of his protruding ribs or lithe frame, his gelid, icicle skin or stand-out copper hair. He didn’t have to acknowledge the feeling of bruises spread over his paper thin flesh, or the way claws sunk deep into his hear the way teeth sunk into his neck, rendering him a captive, marking him like the worthless animal he’d been assumed as from the beginning. Those seeking hands, probing fingers, the insistent nips and licks of a revolting mouth were hardly any business of a General’s; and regardless, it wasn’t his place to clean up the messes that others left behind.

Until, that was, _now._

How long, Hux wondered, had it been since he’d believed himself real? How long since he’d felt free in his body and his mind, since he’d been allowed to go out and see the light of day? His disjointed, broken fingers were a testament to the mangled thought, allaying the fragile realization of just how elaborate the situation had become. His bones even protruded from his legs, splintering off from the rest of him and piercing deeply into the flesh, an ever present reminder of his own weakness and his own stupidity.

For the first time in years, he was stripped of his authority, his command, and his control. Whatever power he’d originally had was part of a failed body and a failed wardrobe. His reliance on rudimentary things such as stims, physical contact or commandeering were his downfall, in the end; his own arrogance the flaw which felled him. He’d been as stupid as he had as a boy, leaving the Finalizer on his own shuttle with only two stormtrooper escorts, docking on some outer rim cesspool to meet with a so-called Resistance defector.

Hux knows his foolishness stems from the need to prove himself-- to push himself to his breaking point, to do everything needed to preserve order independently and without assistance. He’s more an asset than Kylo Ren has ever been, more key to the success of the First Order than that puppet will ever be--

And still, he wants him. Still, he can think of nothing but those bloody hands and the cauterized wound splitting open Kylo’s gut, his shaking hands as he reached for Hux’s shoulders, defeated by a scavenger in the melting snow of Starkiller. When he thinks of Kylo, he loathes the incompetent fool, the reason for his own self-loathing, the insolent sorcerer who speaks in such inane words Hux can hardly wrap his head around it--

The man who held him as he fell to pieces in the aftermath of Starkiller’s destruction.

The moron who fucked him, who slept with him, time and time again, through rampant feelings, tantrums and impulses, who kissed his shoulders almost reverently, who stilled when Hux brushed tears from his eyes with his thumbs.

Hux screams.

The anger is fading fast, and without it, he has nothing to ground himself; his hands shake, back arching as his spine bends impossibly far in response to the first brutal pull of a nail from his finger. His ungloved hands are already shackled into the armrests of a worn chair, a man’s arms holding him about the chest to keep him from moving, sliding their fingers up to grasp at his chin and hold his jaw in place. The other grips the pliers, simple engineering tool they are, and dangles the removed nail before Hux’s eyes, gloating.

_\-- a diplomat’s hands, not a soldiers--_

_\---- bony fingers and still so lily-white… how old are you, boy? How used to your soft life--_

_\------ didn’t need them anyway, Armitage, quit you pfaasking whining, child!_

Hux grits his teeth against the pain, sinking them deep into his own tongue until the metallic taste of blood builds behind his lips, filling the wet cavern until he can hold it closed no more. It spills out, runs down over his chin, just in time for a scream to break loose as his captor rips off the third nail--

No warning, no taunt. It’s pulled straight off of his finger, split in half as the roots are exposed, pulled back and tossed aside as Armitage cringes in his agony.

“Go on, General,” the man behind him whispers into his ear, the title sounding more an insult to Hux’s mind than his rank. “Cry for us, you worthless fool--”

Hux shouts, curses in exclamation as the filthy nails are shoved into his mouth, fingers suddenly prying open his jaw and stuffing themselves down his throat. He chokes around the pressure, bile building behind his tonsils, his own fingernails scraping the inside of his cheeks as the torturer cackles.

“Maybe we should work on these pretty teeth of yours next? Have ourselves a _real_ show…”

Hux can’t prevent his own gag reflex, the vomit spilling at once out onto the man’s hand as quickly as the smack comes to his cheek, the chair kicked back onto the cold metal of the floor as he seizes and spills  bile down his front. “You’re going to pay for that!” His captor assures him, but Hux does not respond, does not move--

And he does not cry.

He is far beyond crying.

 

* * *

 

Until he can no longer take it, he supposes.

When the flesh was burned from his feet, scalded and scorched inside the bubbling inferno of a boiling basin, Hux cries.

He no longer knows how long he has been here; no longer knows anything but the tormenting cycle of pain and the way his back bends as he is stuffed into a box. Time and time again, he’s forced to fall in on himself, his brittle joints cracking and popping out of place to the tone of his father’s own words.

_Weak-willed, useless boy._

_Thin as a slip of paper._

_Fragile._

_Pitiful--_ and he would gasp, trying to wrench himself upward, out of the chilling ice that caressed his black and purple skin, the blisters along his calves. He could nearly see them rotting, his legs bust open through to the bone, bugs gnawing on the remains of his battered flesh. Perhaps if his captors felt kind enough they’d send a piece of his corpse to his father; no doubt Brendol would be highly jovial at such a revolting death. His bastard son, neither wanted nor expected, finally ending up exactly where he’d belonged-- covered in his own bodily fluids, lying bound and gagged in the dirt, left to be stepped on and crushed by the boots of his betters.

And certainly, being crushed now would be a blessing, with the way his skin shifted into green and blue and purple-black, infected with the sickness of his own inadequacy, his own _unworthiness._

But Hux has been _sick_ for so long, hasn’t he? Lying stuffed in a box like a mangled marionette is only a single thread of woe in the miserable tapestry that is his existence.

He sits forward, now, in his chair, with fists clenched and head bowed, the demand of his restraints fading into oblivion just as his mind has already done. Armitage Hux-- former General, officer, sycophant, bastard-- stares in fascination at the mirage of light dancing across the walls before him, fading away into open cracks that glisten with pitch, threatening to bubble over with the rot and venerable ichor they contain.  He’s alone, now, somewhere in this distant room, encapsulated within a shroud of oblivion, the revolting whispers just out of earshot and his durasteel shackles keeping him tied tightly down in his own personal hell.

_Plenty of room to think, he scoffs, to reflect on my errors, my… impudence and my irreverent ways. How the mighty have fallen._

_Or, well._ Armitage hadn’t been mighty to begin with-- hadn’t even been strong. But he’d survived; same as he was doing now.

He shudders through the last dredges of his unconsciousness, water in his eyes and sliding from his bludgeoned skin. The ice, at least, was a welcome distraction from the searing heat of the pain in his arse, in his back, his shoulders and throat. Bloodied slashes and lines gouged through his body, his nail-less hands still grasping for a weapon that Hux knows doesn’t exist. He wants to fight, and for that he should be grateful… but he’s not. Matter of fact, Hux can hardly feel anything, even with the torture, and how asinine it is of him not to love his indifference, his tolerance.

Underneath his skin, the pitch of his depravity runs black and inky through hollowed-out veins, oozing from beneath the cracks in his own visage and dribbling from pores onto ashen stone. A reminder of his own futility, Hux concedes, how impossibly _human_ he is. The most pathetic part is that his heart is still beating, in light of it all, even when it’s been cleaved straight in half; he considers, for the time being, Ren. What Ren might be doing right now, sleeping in his bed or decapitating Republic soldiers, terrifying lowly officers with his cacophonous boasting and shouting. He wonders where the supposedly faceless Knight is, wonders with a naivete that is unbefitting of a General like himself, if perhaps Kylo Ren is searching for him. If he’s _worried._

 _Love is a fantasy created for schoolchildren, not soldiers._ Armitage has learned time and time again how foolish it is to love. Ren isn’t coming for him-- and Hux won’t be alive much longer regardless. It’s better for him to give in… better for him to stop fighting, to accept his fate and welcome it in with open arms, as reality demands that he do…

_I feel… exhausted…_

_I feel empty…_

_I feel…_

_Weak._


	2. Chapter 2

He’s lost count of the days.

How long has it been, since he’d first gotten spirited away, kidnapped like some incompetent slattern almost the second he’d set foot down planetside? How long has it been since he’d snapped, let tears paint his cheeks with a sorrowful ichor and a blasphemous impuissance that he couldn’t repair? How long, how long, how long has he been here, in this skin, how long has he been Armitage, _pathetic, pretty, weak-willed-thin-skinned ARMITAGE,_ instead of the respectable General he’d grown up to be?

For surely this quivering, jilted, anxious creature that wears his face cannot be General Hux. Cannot be _the Starkiller_. It’s a hoax-- Armitage is certain of it, more certain than he is of anything these days-- he laughs.

_Seven hundred and forty-three._

_Seven hundred and thirty-eight._

No, but this-- this task, mathematical, methodical and _mundane_ \-- it keeps him focused. Keeps him sane. He wasn’t even sure what he’d been expecting when he’d heard the other voice, carried by the wind through the hallway, just out of earshot but unmistakable. Armitage had thought... no, _hoped,_ he’d been desperate, wanted to believe-- that he would help him. That _Brendol_ would help him. Pathetic as he was, they shared blood; the Empire demanded his service, needed his service, needed children…

He thinks back, further. Can’t dwell on the present.

_Seven hundred and three._

_Six hundred and ninety-eight._

A nerve twitches from within the mess of bloodied flesh and needling bones that is his hand; Armitage stares at it, unyielding. He’s _exhausted_ ; there are no words for how exhausted he feels. Even the sight of his gored body, a sight that could make even the most stoic stormtrooper’s stomach turn, no longer affects him-- no, he thinks that he could float off, allow the stars to move his consciousness and pluck it out from this broken vessel and carry him away, before his youth and before his contemptible birth.

 _This_ has happened before. When he’d been overwrought by pain, so agonized and damned by all of the agony settled inside his flayed skin, Hux seized. The fits of terror had always been the most difficult to break out of. It felt, somehow, like drowning… sinking under deep waves, lower and lower and lower, until he was so far under the ground he couldn’t even see the light. Breathing became impossible, a crushing weight over his chest, lungs heaving and heaving without taking anything in… pfaask, he was drowning in sorrow and choking on his own air. And the heaving kept going… up and down and up and down.

He inhales; the noises contained within his throat are scratchy, hoarse. They prick it him the same way his half-removed fingernails prick at him, alight with sparks of pain whenever they so much as encounter contact. Armitage wonders, for what must be the hundredth time, if Kylo Ren is going to come for him… if there was ever a Kylo Ren at all. He wonders where Grand Admiral Sloane went; _Aunt Rae,_ his mind whispers, _finally came to her senses and realized you weren’t worth the effort to try and protect; just like mum, just like mum._

“--no longer has any use for him. Though I’m surprised that damnable man kept him for this long; surely he could see what I’ve known since the very beginning. Armitage is _useless_ \--”

“-- won’t care if they lose a General?”

“Starkiller is _gone;_ the plans half demolished. The only thing of worth that bastard ever constructed…”

“... dispose of him?”

His back goes rigid; fingers slide beneath his chin and tilt his head upward; Armitage’s lidless eyes have no choice but to stare directly into the gaze of his nightmarish captor-- _his past, his present._ The green orbs seem to roll listlessly in his head; another spurt of laughter erupts from his throat as a thumb pries his lips from each other, blood rolling over the invasive digit and dribbling down his chin. His arms remain uncomfortably bound, but Armitage does not thrash; he hasn’t the strength, nor the will. The only thing that remains within his body is a suicidal _headache_ , a pained, dying boy that wants nothing more than to escape this situation. The same creature that has made him hope, with futility, day after day, minute after minute…

_Five hundred and seventy-three._

A hand smacks him across the face; his skull is throbbing, pain racing up through the nerves as his flesh reddens even further than before, his knees knocking together as another of his tormentors grasps the chain binding his wrists together and pulls.

His wrist twists about with a violent _crack_ , the noise splitting his head in two as the bar slid through his flesh presses once again on a hollowed-out bone; Armitage whimpers, but he does not scream. He is undignified. He could scream if he wanted-- _no, no, you will not scream. You are better than them, don’t you understand that, don’t you realize they’re only doing this to tarnish you? Keep your mouth shut and your back straight, Armitage, you know the rules of interrogation, you’ve always known. Count. Backwards from three thousand, five hundred and twenty eight, backward by fives, until you hit zero and pick a new number. Keep counting; numbers are solid. They’re reliable._

**Five hundred and eighteen.**

A foot smashes into his side, finding a perch between his ribs with a steel-toe of vindictive agony; he curls on himself, body folding in around the point where the kick connects, bruises spreading and skin tearing open and _it must be a beautiful thing, to break, how lovely I’m sure it is, falling without pause, being destroyed and left to repent for your sins as a new being, a humbled pariah…_

_Stop thinking like that this instant--_

_Stop allowing him to control your thoughts---_

_Banish the voice in your head---_

_HE’S COMING FOR YOU, HE IS. DON’T FALTER, DON’T GIVE IN. THE BACKBONE OF THE EMPIRE--_

Bile covers his front; he reeks of acid and infection and embittered betrayal, and Hux has had enough. He wants no further part in this game, and yet he has been forced to take a position on the board, forced to endure and continue _for the glory of the First Order, the glory of the First Order..._

**\--DEMANDS YOUR FORTITUDE, DEMANDS YOUR SUPPORT.**

White-hot lightning courses through his senses, and Hux’s vision flares red from the trauma; the slave collar embedded in his neck is buzzing, vibrating, shocking him, it’s all he can _feel,_ it’s all he can ** _take_** , _Ren, Ren, Kylo, I need you, I’ve missed you, I wanted you--_

There is a scream.

And then there is light.

It takes awhile for Hux to even understand the scene he’s been confronted with, the cry that came from his own throat and shattered his pfaasking vocal cords in the same moment. The voice tangled up inside him comes bursting free with the same force as the tears pouring over his face, crystalline waterfalls of nothing but the terror and angst he longed to quell, longed to erase. He thinks that it must be the suddenness, the overwhelming _need_ of wanting to die, how abruptly it had come on, now, when he was so close to the metaphorical precipice he could literally _see_ the light...

A scream again, and Hux barely realizes this one isn’t his, until he’s looking down and fresh blood is soaking the exposed skin of his chest, his thighs, dribbling down over the flesh until it paints trails of red around his body and he can hardly even remember… no, stars, he just knows it’s _sick_ … everything here, every part of the galaxy-- the galaxy is an odious cesspool, something that chews people up and spits them out without ever giving a damn. The Order had thrown Hux himself to the brink of destruction so often and then pulled him back like a spiteful god and _he'd ruined everything again, no no no, don't tell him…!_

But these sentiments, these relentless, cacophonous inner thoughts, have never left Hux’s head. He did not speak of _fear_ , did not acknowledge _imperfection,_ and yet here he was, thinking of being reduced to an object all over again, his senses knocked out of him while he was being humiliated and writhing around in his shackles on the floor, crying to himself all while illogical children berated his inane behavior and his delinquent actions…   _oh, how he’d ruined himself._ It shouldn’t be a shock, not like this, because Brendol always said he ruined everything he got his filthy hands on, and he’d even ruined Starkiller in the end, hadn’t he?

Hux watches vacantly as rivulets of blood splash across his face, as the liquid trails over his skin and the remaining tatters of his regulation underclothes and he sinks teeth into his lip when his eyes focus and he _sees_ exactly what has happened.

There are hands on his dismantled mounds of flesh, large and yet light at the same time, covering the scars with their knightly splendour. He’s seen those hands before, skin just slightly darker than his own, marred with beautiful scars and _so, so_ warm. And there are fingers on his cheek, reverent, still even as Hux tries so desperately to curl his body up, pull himself back together and stitch all the pieces of fear back into his mind, ready and wanting to _escape_ whatever pain was certain to present itself next…

But those _eyes._ Startling, deep, dark eyes, emotional, chaotic, tumultuous…

He can’t move, not now; he is finally at Kylo Ren’s mercy… _at his wit’s end..._

“Armitage…”

Hux shudders and sobs, a wild, capricious torrent of self-loathing and volatility cleansing him of his hatred and his pain. _By the Order…_ if this was what dying felt like, he wished he'd been told sooner of how grievous it would be…!

“W-wh…” _What’s going on…? Kylo, I-I didn’t… m-m-mean to do it… t-they’re going to be here, right? Be back soon, I… I d-did something bad… w-wanted to make it all happen, kept seeing… mutilating. It hurts, Kylo, it hurts so much!_

“Shh, Hux, just close your eyes-- that's right, save your energy. I--” Kylo pauses, his tone strained as he bows forward and falls like a blanket over Hux’s battered frame in a gesture mournfully protective. “Fuck, I thought I lost you. I thought I _lost_ you, thought I was too late, I’m so _useless,_ so _undisciplined-- Armitage…”_

Hux shakes his head, tangling his good hand into Kylo’s robes, exposed nailbeds causing even his attempt at affection, at appreciation to falter. He seems incapable of doing anything other than shaking his head-- over and over, he repeats the gesture, his head weary and fatigued. _I thought I was dreaming, Ren… how is it over? How could it_ possibly _be over?_

“It's over--” Kylo mumbles, and Hux can’t figure out whether he’s trying to reassure him-- or himself. “It’s _over,_ Tidge, it’s over. I killed them-- _killed them all,_ you don’t have to worry anymore. I’m here… _I’m here, and I won’t ever leave again…”_

Hux goes slack against Ren’s body, falls still within his arms; for a moment, he forgets to breathe. And then, at long last, he responds.

“Zero.”

_Ren? Take me home._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm truly sorry this has taken so long. the writer's block has basically eviscerated me these past few months. Astris, I hope this was at least close to something worthy to accompany your wonderful art. Thanks for discussing everything with me and being so understanding.


End file.
